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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686609">in the early hours;</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tennis RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And in love, Boys In Love, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Established Relationship, Feels, M/M, Short &amp; Sweet, saschanos being softies, the usual</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:49:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,362</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686609</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I missed you,” he murmurs, lips close to Sascha’s ear. </p><p>He can feel Sascha smile against his neck, where he leaves a playful, gentle bite before answering: “I missed you too”. <br/>-<br/>Saschanos reunion in Paris after the USO finals.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Stefanos Tsitsipas/Alexander Zverev</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>in the early hours;</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The bed dipping wakes Stefanos up in the early hours of the morning, sometime before dawn. Even in his sleepy state, he smiles, blindly opening his arms for Sascha to borrow into.</p><p>Sascha does – immediately, actually, winding himself around Stefanos and nuzzling his cold face in the crook of Stefanos’ neck.</p><p>“You’re so warm, <em>solnyshko</em>,” he murmurs, voice sweet and full of affection.  </p><p>Stefanos holds him close, leaving small kisses on Sascha’s temple while his heart beats wildly in his chest, reminding him of how completely in love he is, so much so that his stomach still flips when he sees Sascha after some time apart.</p><p>It hasn’t been long this time, merely a couple of weeks, but the last time they had seen each other had been painful. Sascha had been crying in Stefanos’ arms, body wracked by sobs as he mourned the painful loss of his first Grand Slam final. It had taken Stefanos all night to get him to calm down, whispering reassurances and words of love as he cradled Sascha’s head to his chest, and in seeing Sascha, his Sascha, so broken and inconsolable he had felt his own heart break.</p><p>He’d had to leave for Rome the morning after, having stuck around in New York to be with Sascha during the final – even if he had been able to watch only from his hotel room. Leaving Sascha in such a vulnerable state had been one of the hardest thing he had ever done, and every day they spent apart he had worried, even if he knew that Sascha was home in Monaco and with his family.</p><p>They had texted every day and called each other every night, but Stefanos had been eager to be with Sascha again and he had asked Sascha to go straight to his hotel room in Paris no matter how late (or early) that may be.</p><p>The relief he feels now, having Sascha safe and sound in his arms, is so strong that he suddenly feels too awake to fall back to sleep.</p><p>“I missed you,” he murmurs, lips close to Sascha’s ear.</p><p>He can feel Sascha smile against his neck, where he leaves a playful, gentle bite before answering: “I missed you too”.</p><p>Stefanos brings a hand to cradle the back of Sascha’s neck, and Sascha instinctively raises his head, the angle almost supplicating, begging for a kiss that Stefanos immediately grants him. It’s slow, sweet and unhurried, and so wonderfully intimate.</p><p>Sascha’s hand gently lands on Stefanos’ face, thumb caressing his cheekbone. They explore each other’s mouths, reconnecting and savouring the closeness, and it’s so good that Stefanos finds himself shivering a couple of times. When they break for air, both breathless in the best possible way, Sascha runs his nose along Stefanos’ before burying his face into Stefanos’ neck once again.</p><p>“You smell so good,” he sighs, clinging to Stefanos in such an openly affectionate way that Stefanos has to be glad he’s lying down with how weak his knees suddenly got.</p><p>They cuddle in the silence of the room, in this space that it’s just theirs, free from the pressure and the noise of their chaotic world.</p><p>“I couldn’t sleep without you,” Stefanos confesses after a while. “I got so used to it in New York that not having you there felt strange”.</p><p>Sascha leaves a few kisses on his shoulder, before whispering back “I never sleep as well as I do when you’re there. You just make me feel more, I don’t know, more centred. And –“ he hesitates, the tips of his ears blushing red.</p><p>“And…?” Stefanos asks, quietly, gently nudging the top of Sascha’s blond head with his.</p><p>“…safe. You make me feel safe. When I’m with you I never feel like I can’t breathe, like the pressure is crushing me. You never make me feel like I’m not enough and I love you for it”. Sascha removes his face from where it’s nestled on Stefanos’ shoulder and scoots back a little until they’re face to face, still so close that the tips of their noses are almost touching.</p><p>The intensity in Sascha’s clear, piercing blue eyes takes Stefanos’ breath away, like it always does – like it’s always done, ever since the first time Sascha looked at him when they were kids.</p><p>“I love you,” Sascha repeats, and this is nowhere near the first time he’s said the words out loud to Stefanos, but the way he’s saying them now, eyes bearing into Stefanos’ and never wavering, it makes Stefanos feel the weight of them. It’s as humbling as it is elating – like a win against the worthiest of opponents.</p><p>“I love you too, μάτια μου. So much,” he says, leaning forward to leave a kiss on Sascha’s forehead.</p><p>Sascha smiles at him with naked adoration, and he’s so beautiful and looks so peaceful that something inside of Stefano just breaks open.</p><p>“Move in with me,” he hears himself say, and he finds once the words are out that they’re not scary at all, and that he means them – now that he’s said them out loud he realizes he wants this with such fierce intensity that his heart is pounding in his ears.</p><p>Sascha blinks at him, slowly, lashes caressing his cheekbones before he’s looking at Stefanos again, an expression of earnestly sweet surprise painted on his face.</p><p>“We could look for a place when we’re back in Monaco, after the Finals in London,” Stefanos tells him, before adding, “… if that’s something you want too. Obviously, uhm. You don’t have to say yes, or you can just, you know. Think about it for a while and-“</p><p>Sascha shuts him up with a kiss, hot, deep and all-consuming, so much so that Stefanos loses himself in it and almost forgets their conversation entirely, until Sascha stops kissing him long enough to whisper, right on Stefanos’ lips.</p><p>“Yes. Of course it’s a yes, of course I want to move in with you.”</p><p>It’s all so incredibly perfect that Stefanos starts giggling with happiness, and once he does Sascha is laughing too, hair unruly and canines showing, and God he’s so beautiful and he’s all Stefanos’.</p><p>“Dork,” Sascha tells him. “I already know you’ll force me to watch all kinds of geeky shows that will make me extremely uncool”. It has no bite to it – on the contrary, it’s full of fond familiarity, and Sascha moves back into his favorite position, head pillowed on Stefanos’ shoulder, as he says it.</p><p>“You’re like a giant cat,” Stefanos tells him, starting to pet his hair and scratch his scalp before adding, “And you forget the plot of every film you watch approximately ten seconds after it ends, I’m not sure why you think you have any authority when it comes to picking good TV”.</p><p>“Hmm, that feels <em>so </em>good,” Sascha moans, eyes slipping closed. “I’ll have you know my memory is excellent,” he tacks on with a yawn, and Stefanos can tell that he’s about ten seconds from falling asleep. “I remember all the things that count”.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, like Ubaldo’s quotes so that you can use them against him”.</p><p>“Yeah, like that. But also about you. I remember everything about you.”</p><p>Stefanos smiles, continuing to pet Sascha’s blond curls as he falls asleep. It didn’t take him long after they first got together to discover that a sleepy Sascha is the sweetest, most unfiltered Sascha there is, and it suddenly hits him that come November he’ll get to fall asleep and wake up next to him every single day that they aren’t on tour.</p><p>“You make me feel like I’m the happiest, luckiest person in the world,” he murmurs, and he knows that Sascha can’t hear him, but it doesn’t matter. If things go the way he hopes them to go, he’ll have the rest of his life to tell this beautiful, stubborn, talented boy how much he means to him.</p><p>He feels sleep slowly overcoming him, Sascha’s comforting weight on him like a blanket of cotton-like dreams. His last thought before he falls asleep is that he has to tell his dad he’s moving out. Apolostolos will throw a <em>fit. </em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I miss saschanos a lot &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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